"Romance in the Scottish Highlands"

Gillian always felt like something of an outsider in her family. Her mother and sisters were gifted with the ability to do magic as witches, but Gillian had yet to find if she had inherited any of the family's powers or not. But when her father betroths her to her sister's jilted suitor, Nicholas Lyon, Earl of Kincreag, Gillian is disturbed by strange visions that she sees of her husband-to-be's first wife. Can she shake the disturbing feeling that something evil is waiting for her as her life takes a drastic change for the worse as she attempts to fulfill her wedding vows?

Nicholas Lyon had agreed to marry Alan MacDonnell's oldest daughter Isobel, but was left hanging when Isobel married Sir Phillip Kirkpatrick unexpectedly. So Alan offers Nicholas the hand of his second daughter, Gillian, in place of Isobel. Reluctantly, Nicholas agrees to marry the dark- haired beauty, knowing full well it was only to appease his dying friend. Little did he know that he would soon come to cherish and adore the feisty and small young woman with a mind of her own. But marriage to the "Devil" Lord would be difficult for both of them, at best.

As she attempts to settle into her new home, Gillian is plagued by visions of people who no one else sees. She soon finds that she is indeed gift with powers, necromancy - the power to speak to the dead, and they were talking plenty. If she can only decipher their riddles, she may be able to discover the source of her new husband's pain.

In her second novel in "The McDonnel Brides" trilogy, "My Devilish Scotsman," Jen Holling takes her reader further into the family of the MacDonnel clan as she explores the lives of three sisters who are witches in 1500's Scotland. The continuity in this story is well done as characters from Holling's first book in this series, "My Wicked Highlander," are included in this new story of romance in the Scottish Highlands.

Reviewed by Sharon Galligar Chance
Posted June 21, 2005